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Random bump for my TOP TEN after rewatching 90% of the episodes over Christmas (and out of pity for a milestone thread not even reaching 3 pages).


10. The Pothole

JERRY: But, I'll tell you this much. I am never going to let some silly hygienic mishap get in the way of, what could be, a meaningful, long-lasting relationship.

QUOTES
JERRY: Jenna's like me. She's very... (searches for word)
GEORGE: Finicky? Prissy? Fastidious?
JERRY: I'll take fastidious.

ELAINE: You still couldn't kiss her?
JERRY: She has a taint. I can't see it, but I know it's there.
ELAINE: Oh, so now you're finding fault on a sub-atomic level.

COMMENTS
I've said before that Jerry's one of the better, underrated characters (at least when he's utilised properly) and this ep has possibly the best Jerry story of the whole series. A lot of the last two seasons did turn a bit "live action cartoon" and all the other plots suffer a bit from that, but they're funny enough for me to overlook them, even if the punch-line is really just a big potty joke.

9. The Slicer

Jerry: Revenge date? That sound like you more than me.
George: This good be so sweet, Jerry. Saving lives? She's one step away working at the clinique counter!

QUOTES
Elaine: Yes, she's a dermatologist.
Jerry: Saving lives? The whole profession is; eh, just put some aloe on it.

Kramer: I think we are looking half a millimeter.
Elaine: Can it cut that thin?
Kramer: Oh, I've cut slices so thin, I couldn't even see them.
Elaine: How did you know you cut it?
Kramer: Well, I guess I just assumed.

Kramer: Male mammal. Approximately 30 to 60 years of age. Weight...uh indeterminate. Ok, Mr. Kruger, we are gonna take a photo now for the records. So if you'll stand up please and give me a big smile, oh no no no, not that big. Yeah, that's nice, yes okay. Yes, let's have a look-see...ok, so eh, fiber from shirt on the left shoulder. I'm gonna have to keep my eye on that.

COMMENTS
I am not just ranking this one highly because Jerry dates a redhead. Like 'The Pot Hole', it's another pretty goofy bunch of storylines, but they all fit together in a much funnier way. Like my other favourite Season 9 episode (SPOILER), it features a pretty dark subtext with the cancer jokes (though even George couldn't be made so horrible as to let a guy's tumour remain undetected ). Cameos of Van Nostand and the "little kicks" and little moments like the cartoonised Kruger = GOLD.

8. The Checks

JERRY: This has 'international incident' written all over it.

GEORGE: Who buys an umbrella anyway? Y..you get 'em for free in the coffee shop in the metal cans.
JERRY: (as if speaking to a moron) Those belong to people.

GEORGE: So? For a twenty-five dollar cleaning, I can listen to some pointless
blather.
JERRY: I do it, I'm not even getting the cleaning.

BRETT: Looks like what you really need is a decent desk for writing your skits.
JERRY: (quiet annoyance) I don't write skits.
BRETT: (walking back to Elaine) Well, of course you don't. You don't have a proper workstation. I'll fax you over my catalogue.
ELAINE: Mmm. Brett, uhm, Jerry doesn't have a fax machine.
BRETT: (quiet) Oops. Well, I'm sure things'll pick up for you soon.

COMMENTS
Brett is easily the best of Elaine's one-shot boyfriends (and would have probably been better than Puddy if he hadn't, yah no, died), making this the only episode on the list where Elaine's plotline is possibly the funniest. Reprising the Jerry's pilot story leads to a lot more laughs than in The Finale and that whole "Engrish" plot works well. The umbrella stuff is pretty weird and out of place, but the randomness is enough to make it work considering how little of the episode it actually takes up.

7. The Pez Dispenser

George: What did you put the Pez dispenser on her leg for in the first place?
JERRY: I dunno, it was an impulse.
George: What kind of a sick impulse does that??

QUOTES
George: Hey, hey! We're discussing something!
JERRY: I know, but I'm distracted now.
George: What are you? A *baby*!?

JERRY: Kramer says to Richie why don't you dump the bucket of Gatorade on Marty Benson's head? The club owner. So Richie goes ahead and does it.
Elaine: So? What happened?
JERRY: What happened? The guy was like 67 years old, it was freezing out, he caught a cold, got pneumonia, and a month later he was dead...All the comedians were happy. He was one of these club owners nobodu liked anyway. But Richie was never the same.
Elaine: What about Kramer?
JERRY: He's the same!

COMMENTS
Despite these entries being mostly later season entries, my favourite period of the show is mid Season 3 to mid Season 4 (apart from the icky "Kramer Goes To LA" episodes right in the middle of that bunch). They'd almost all make the Top 50, but I like this one a little more as it manages to have both the solid plot and the neurotic bantering that makes them so good. George's relationship woes are a lot more reasonable than usual and the plot actually works to involve all the characters instead of everything seeming just like a one-sided rant. And after weeks of poor Kramer plots, this show set up the great Calvin Klein storyline the following season.

6. The Jimmy

JERRY: "Is this guy a dentist or Caligula?"

KRAMER: "You know.. You really shouldn't brush 24 hours before seeing the dentist."
JERRY: "I think that's eat 24 hours before surgery."
KRAME: "Oh no, you got to eat before surgery, you need your strength."

ELAINE: "You can't find beauty in a man?"
JERRY: "No... I find them repugnant and unappealing."

ELAINE: "You know that just admitting a man is handsome doesn't necessarily make you a homosexual."
GEORGE: "It doesn't help"

COMMENTS
To clarify ThaiSu's obviously wrong opinions, Jimmy is not the best one-shot character ever, since he's actually not very funny on his own (while Alton Benes and Vegetable Lasagne were the STARS of their episode) - and Mel Torme gets more laughs. But this is one of the few eps where all four characters have a good story, which is enough to be Top 10 worthy in itself. Kramer gets to be spastically OTT, Elaine gets to be flirty, George gets to panic and Jerry gets to be OCD-hysterical. The only thing stopping this from being Top 5 is the fairly anticlimactic ending - the "Jimmy yelling at Kramer" scene seems totally pointless.

That episode also features the BEST JERRY LINE EVER: "I can't watch a man sing a song!"

Top 5 probably tomorrow: